A Lot to Answer For
by fantasdancer
Summary: A returning memory staggers Daniel. Jack sets him straight. Set soon after Daniel has retaken human form.


_**A Lot to Answer For**_

He had just been about to sit down to the meal he had on his tray when the memory hit him. Instead of sitting, he staggered a little clumsily clutching at the back of the chair and staring sightlessly ahead as the memory downloaded.

"Doctor Jackson?" someone asked with a voice filled with concern.

Daniel didn't see who had spoken. He hurried out of the commissary as quickly as he could go without actually running. The memory was still coming and somehow he made it into the elevator and onto the floor where the office was. But each step he took was painful with returning memory and realisations and he staggered more than once.

She had lied to him. The one called Sam. They had all lied to him. They'd said he was someone worth knowing – but, in fact, he was as far from that as one could get.

The guilt and grief were too much. He almost felt that the pain of it would stop his breath in his chest. How could he know what he was guilty of and still be sane; still breathe. The horror of it all, the ugliness … . But, somehow he held himself together and walked on past a group of military guys trading jokes in the hall and headed into the refuge of his office. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, wrapping shaking arms around himself as if he could hold himself together.

They had lied to him and his bewildered mind brushed over possible motives. Perhaps they were going to put him on trial for it. Perhaps kill him … but all the possible motives slipped from his mind as he remembered all of what he had done. It was horrible ... unforgivable.

Remembering tiny snippets from when he had gone and done the glowy thing was painful beyond belief. This memory staggered him. If he had known back on Vis'uban what remembering his former life would involve, he would have run for the hills the moment he'd spotted an SG team. He'd been so right to worry about remembering this stuff. He had done the unforgivable and he hated himself for it - didn't know how he could live another day knowing what he had done.

He stumbled over to his desk, leaned against it and panted through the pain. His glasses slipped from his nose and clattered unseen to the floor, his hands clutched at his head with clawed fingers as if he wished he could claw the memories out of his mind. Faces he had murdered flashed before him with each gasp of pain. His good father, his brother Skarra, Misha, Jinjal, Talana, Renen, D'jir, old Menk and oh God, the children, so _many_ children. _All_ of them, the whole planet of Abydos. He'd gotten them all killed. He had the blood of thousands on his hands, perhaps hundreds of thousands or millions, people he had never even met. He was giving Hitler a run for his money. Actually he was worse than that. He had killed an entire _planet_ full of people. He was a monster beyond compare. His breath caught in his throat and he wished he could die with it.

A hand touched his shoulder.

Daniel turned and the tears that had clouded his vision spilled onto the hand.

Jack's grip tightened on Daniel's shoulder. "What did you remember?"

Daniel shuddered. "Abydos. So many people, Jack. I ... . So many people ..."

"Yup, Anubis has a lot to answer for."

"No Jack, ..."

"Aht. Daniel, I am only going to say this once. I shouldn't even have to say it at all 'cause if you _remembered_ … if you had even the smallest inkling of what kind of a person you were, then you'd know that you did everything in your power to protect the Abydonians from Anubis. Everything. In. Your. Power. It wasn't your fault."

"How do you _know,_ Jack. How can you say ..."

"I know you, Daniel. Everyone on this base who knows you will tell you the same thing. You would have given your life to save those people, Daniel. In fact, you _did _give your ascended life to save them. But it wasn't enough in the end. Not against Anubis."

"But, what if being ascended changed me, Jack – what if I became a … a monster there." He held up a hand to stop Jack before he could speak. "You told me that I visited you when Ba'al was torturing you – that I _knew_ what he was doing to you. God, he was _killing_ you over and over and I did nothing. That ascended thing that I became – did nothing ... ."

"Daniel, you did everything you could get away with." This time Jack held his hand up to stop Daniel from interrupting. "Being ascended meant you had rules to follow and you hadn't been gone that long when Ba'al got a hold of me. You tried to help me in the only way you knew how. I _know_ you did. And I think my memory is better than yours on that one."

Daniel was quiet, head bowed, shoulders slumped. His arms crept up and wrapped around himself again but he could not still the shudders rippling through him.

"Maybe you should be blaming me for Abydos," said Jack softly.

Daniel's head shot up, momentarily speechless with shock.

"I pushed you Daniel. You told me the Others would stop you if you helped us, but I pushed Daniel. I made you break their rules and they stopped you before you could stop Anubis."

"You don't know that, Jack."

"Timing's about right. You became Arrom about the same time."

"You weren't even there, Jack - on Anubis's ship. It wasn't your fault."

"Well, if it wasn't my fault and it wasn't your fault then we blame the guy who had his finger on the trigger."

"Anubis." The arms unwrapped slowly and the shoulders unhunched.

"Yup. Anubis has got a lot to answer for."

SGSGSGSG

_**Sorry Guys, I'm as sick as ... so hunted through my old stories and found this for you instead of an update for Annwyn which I'm feeling too sick to deal with at the mo. Hope you'll forgive.**_


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